It’s our last day of walking our current endeavour on the Camino de Santiago. This gets us to roughly 200km or 25% of the way to Santiago de Compostela, depending which signposts you believe. We might finish in 3 years time at this rate. Here’s the 4 A Day Picture Diary of today’s events. Where? […]| What's the PONT
Coming this week from the Camino de Santiago. Other examples of Welsh Tin Sheds are also available. It was getting a bit crowded on the main Tin Sheds page, so I’ve created another space for International examples. And it’s a good one to start with. Feast your eyes on this. It’s a tin shed that […]| What's the PONT
Before I start, I just want to point out that a rest day sometimes causes more problems than cures. I’ve got a weird groin strain that’s making my heel go numb. So just as well it’s a short day from Logrono to Navarrete. And here’s a picture of me doing some foot stretches along The […]| What's the PONT
Specifically, would the Bridge in Pontypridd look like it does now if William Edwards had been on a Camino Pilgrimage? Bear with me on this. I’ve been told not to keep trying to connect everything back to Old South Wales, like we are the Centre of the Universe or something. But this is relevant (kind […]| What's the PONT
We didn’t think we were going to do this at about lunchtime yesterday. The thought of another 8km in the building heat was daunting. Those Taxi phone numbers that appear on bus stops and lamp-posts were a serious temptation. But, like true Peregrinos we avoided the temptation and trudged on. Blimey, that sounds dramatic. It […]| What's the PONT
I think I’ve fallen into a pattern for the 4 a day picture diary of our walk. Starting with a view from the hotel window where we spent the night. Where? Villamayor de Monjardin as the sun is rising over the local winery, Bodegas Castillo De Monjardin. This is unfortunately a view over the working […]| What's the PONT
One of the preconditions / contract stipulations of SB taking part in the Camino walk is that she gets to book the hotels. And they have to be ones she approves of. Secretly I’m very appreciative of that condition. So the ‘short’ walking day was actually planned around a stay at a very nice boutique […]| What's the PONT
Apologies. I’m a bit delayed in posting the Where, What, Who and Why 4 a day picture blog. Yesterday was a bit longer than expected and very much warmer than either of us had hoped for. So, morale in camp was at a low ebb last night. I should make it clear, we are NOT […]| What's the PONT
So here’s a story, and apologies for the deviation from the 4 a day picture diary… We are walking into Puente La Reina when I see these iron statues. A man and woman poised with some sort of digging tool. The statues aren’t ‘ancient’ and there’s no explanation of what they are about. Obviously, I’m […]| What's the PONT
What if you are a pixel in a higher-level consciousness navigating through extra dimensions of time? Meet the 'Nested Observer Window Model' of Jonathan Schooler, PhD, who is Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential, and Acting Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. In this video, Hans Busstra interviewed Schooler on his Nested Observer Window Model...| Essentia Foundation
Physicist and physician Dr. Anita Goel has designed the equivalent of the double slit experiment in a living system, to test if the nanomachines that read and write DNA could operate quantum mechanically. In this interview with Hans Busstra, Goel talks about her experiment and explores the new theoretical framework it could lead to: a new physics to understand life, living systems and consciousness. Het bericht What if the molecular machines that read and write your DNA are quantum? ver...| Essentia Foundation
Physicist and neuroscientist Dr. Alex Gómez-Marín delivered a strikingly activist speech at the Science of Consciousness Conference (TSC) in Barcelona, 2025. He argued that we are now in a war on consciousness, with materialism and trans-humanism forming a dangerous cocktail. Dr. Gómez-Marín is associate professor of the Spanish Research Council in Alicante, Spain, and director of the Pari Center in Tuscany, Italy. Hans Busstra sat down with Marín directly after his speech to analyze wha...| Essentia Foundation
I absolutely love modified hand tools. The sort of things that someone has made or changed to do a very specific piece of work. So feast your eyes on this little beauty. Today I’ve enjoyed some tim…| What's the PONT
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator and host of the renowned documentary series "Closer to Truth," has undertaken the monumental task of mapping 325+ scientific theories of consciousness, organising them into ten categories—from materialist accounts to quantum approaches, from Integrated Information Theory to panpsychism and all different forms of idealisms, amongst which Analytic Idealism. In this conversation, Hans Busstra talks to Kuhn about the categories of his map and the metaphysical commi...| Essentia Foundation
In this interview, Dr. David Acunzo, from the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, talks with Natalia Vorontsova about his experimental research on hypnosis and anomalous psi phenomena. Dr. Acunzo stresses the importance of the scientific study of anomalous phenomena, which are largely ignored by mainstream science. He exemplifies true open-mindedness in science, demonstrating that one need not be a psi "believer," but rather a rigorous researcher searching for answer...| Essentia Foundation
Hans Busstra and Dr. Lídia del Rio talk to Dr. Matthew Leifer, Assistant Professor of Physics at Chapman University, about the epistemic interpretation of quantum mechanics. Classically, when physicists call themselves ‘realists’ they mean that we should assume that a physical, observer-independent universe is fundamental. But if this counts as realism, anti-realism is perhaps the more respectable position. Leifer points, for instance, to ‘Bell-Wigner mashups’: thought-experiments th...| Essentia Foundation
In this interview, Dr. Philip Cozzolino, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, talks with Natalia Vorontsova about his research results and methods for dealing with the fear of death. He also delves into intriguing reincarnation-like cases and past-life memories in children, as well as the metaphysical implications of his research.| Essentia Foundation
Dr. David Schmid, Dr. Lídia Del Rio and Hans Busstra explore a metaphysical shift that’s happening in the foundations of physics: the wave function is no longer regarded as something real, but just as a description of what we know about the world. In philosophical terms: the wave function is not ontic, but epistemic. And in more popular terms: the multiverse is science fiction, resting on a too-literal interpretation of a piece of mathematics called the Schrödinger equation.| Essentia Foundation
Dr. Edward Kelly, a professor of experimental psychology, talks about his many years of study of a variety of psi and anomalous phenomena. In this interview with Natalia Vorontsova, he candidly shares how phenomenological evidence has led him to re-examine his metaphysical views on the nature of reality. Are our minds confined to our brains? Do we survive our biological death? Is mind primary to matter? Why should we take anomalous phenomena seriously? These are some of the topics covered in ...| Essentia Foundation
Hans Busstra interviews theoretical physicist and complexity scientist James Glattfelder on his new book: 'The Sapient Cosmos: What a modern-day synthesis of science and philosophy teaches us about the emergence of information, consciousness, and meaning,' published by Essentia Foundation. Glattfelder makes a plea for ‘syncretic idealism’: a worldview that synthesises ancient idealist texts and mystical experiences with physics, complexity science and analytic idealism.| Essentia Foundation
This interview explores the fundamental premises of Analytic Idealism. Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, known for developing this philosophical system, discusses the nature of consciousness, life, God, and AI with Natalia Vorontsova. All questions are based on input from our audience.| Essentia Foundation
Hans Busstra, together with Essentia Foundation's research fellow, physicist Lidia Del Rio, talks to Prof. Sandu Popescu about quantum non-locality. Popescu is Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He did pioneering work in what became the field of quantum information and has won both the John Stuart Bell Prize and the Dirac Medal.| Essentia Foundation
'Talking' to cells without influencing genes or molecules: it can be done by influencing bioelectric fields. By manipulating the bioelectric fields in organisms like planaria and tadpoles, Prof. Michael Levin has shown how eyes and other organs can grow in unconventional locations, how planaria can be ‘told’ to grow two heads, and perhaps most importantly: how cancer cells can be ‘told’ to stop growing in frogs. These promising experiments might lead to groundbreaking new therapeutics...| Essentia Foundation
Inside you there is a largely unexplored universe of 100 trillion bacteria. In this documentary, we embark on a journey into this microcosmos to discover the beauty and complexity of life's origin on the nanoscale. In 2023 Essentia Foundation's Hans Busstra created a documentary about bacteria that depicts our common ancestor in a never-before-seen manner. With the world’s leading artists in microscopy, like micro-photographer Wim van Egmond, SEM microscopist Jan Dijksterhuis, and a molecul...| Essentia Foundation
Hans Busstra sat down with John Vervaeke to discuss the meaning crisis, the Zombie myth we’re in, and how it all relates to what Vervaeke calls "rabbit hole metaphysics": the conspiratorial, outlandish and often absurd ideas people start believing in, in search of meaning. A characteristic of rabbit hole types of metaphysics is that they have a ‘thick’ description of reality: a constellation of ungrounded assumptions build up to a ‘once you get this, there’s no way back’ narrative...| Essentia Foundation
Two giants of science and technology—Nobel Laureate in physics, Sir Roger Penrose, and inventor of the microprocessor, Federico Faggin—meet to discuss their ideas on the relationship between Quantum Physics and consciousness, with the special participation of our own Bernardo Kastrup. While always respectful and congenial, the participants don't shy away from disagreements. Their starting difference regards Quantum Theory itself: while Federico Faggin and Bernardo Kastrup allow its implic...| Essentia Foundation
What if your child could feel their friend's headache in their own head? Would you be able to explain where the boundaries of self begin and end? Or how would you react if your child experienced 'loving darkness' during an NDE? Natalia Vorontsova explored these and other fundamental questions about the nature of reality, consciousness, and science with a researcher of children's transpersonal and extrasensory experiences, Dr. Donna Thomas.| Essentia Foundation
